1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light-emitting element which includes an organic compound as a light-emitting substance.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, research and development have been extensively conducted on light-emitting elements using electroluminescence (EL). In a basic structure of such a light-emitting element, a layer containing a light-emitting substance (an EL layer) is interposed between a pair of electrodes. By applying voltage to this element, light emission from the light-emitting substance can be obtained.
Since such a light-emitting element is of self-light-emitting type, the light-emitting element has advantages over a liquid crystal display in that visibility of pixels is high, backlight is not required, and so on and is therefore suitable as flat panel display elements. In addition, it is also a great advantage that a display including such a light-emitting element can be manufactured as a thin and lightweight display. Furthermore, very high speed response is also one of the features of such an element.
Since a light-emitting layer of such a light-emitting element can be formed in the form of a film, planar light emission can be achieved. Therefore, large-area light sources can be easily formed. This feature is difficult to obtain with point light sources typified by incandescent lamps and LEDs or linear light sources typified by fluorescent lamps. Thus, light-emitting elements also have great potential as planar light sources which can be applied to lighting devices and the like.
In the case of an organic EL element in which an organic compound is used as the light-emitting substance and an EL layer containing the light-emitting substance is provided between a pair of electrodes, application of a voltage between the pair of electrodes causes injection of electrons from the cathode and holes from the anode into the EL layer having a light-emitting property, and thus a current flows. By recombination of the injected electrons and holes, the organic compound having a light-emitting property is put in an excited state to provide light emission.
The excited state of an organic compound can be a singlet excited state or a triplet excited state, and light emission from the singlet excited state (S1) is referred to as fluorescence, and light emission from the triplet excited state (T1) is referred to as phosphorescence. The statistical generation ratio of the excited states in the light-emitting element is considered to be S1:T1=1:3. Therefore, a light-emitting element including a phosphorescent compound capable of converting the triplet excited state into light emission has been actively developed in recent years.
However, most phosphorescent compounds currently available are complexes containing a rare metal such as iridium as a central metal, which raises concern about the cost and the stability of supply.
Therefore, as materials which do not contain a rare metal and can convert part of a triplet excited state into light emission, materials emitting delayed fluorescence have been studied. In the materials emitting delayed fluorescence, a singlet excited state is generated from a triplet excited state by reverse intersystem crossing, and the singlet excited state is converted into light emission.
Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose a material emitting thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF).